Ratings May Threaten Online Speech
By David Braun, TechWire

WASHINGTON The U.S. government's efforts to force the Internet
industry to rate content could threaten free speech online, the
American Civil Liberties Union said in a recently released white paper.

"All that we have achieved may now be lost, if not in the bright
flames of censorship then in the dense smoke of the many ratings and
blocking schemes promoted by some of the very people who fought for
freedom," the ACLU said in thewhite paper titled "Is Cyberspace Burning?"

In the landmark case Reno vs. ACLU, the activist group gained
momentum when the Supreme Court overturned the Communications Decency
Act, saying that the Internet deserves the same level of protection
afforded to books and other printed matter. However, at the
subsequent White House summit, the ACLU said it was alarmed by the
willingness of industry leaders to create a variety of schemes to
regulate and block controversial online speech.

"It was not any one proposal or announcement that caused our alarm,"
the group said. "Rather, it was the failure to examine the
longerterm implications for the Internet of rating and blocking
schemes," it said.

The White House meeting was the first step away from the principle
that protection of the electronic word is analogous to protection of
the printed word," the activist group said. "Despite the Supreme
Court's strong rejection of a broadcast analogy for the Internet,
government and industry leaders alike are now inching toward the
dangerous and incorrect position that the Internet is like
television, and should be rated and censored accordingly," the ACLU said.

"Is Cyberspace burning? Not yet, perhaps. But where
there's smoke, there's fire," the New Yorkbased group
said.

At the White House summit last month, Netscape announced plans to
join Microsoft in adopting Platform for Internet Content Selection,
or PICS, the rating standard that establishes a consistent way to
rate and block online content. IBM also announced it was making a
$100,000 grant to the Recreational Software Advisory Council to
encourage the use of its RSAC rating system.

Four of the major search engines announced a plan to
cooperate in the promotion of "selfregulation" of the
Internet.

Sen. Patty Murray (DWash.) has proposed legislation that would
impose civil and potentially criminal penalties on those who
incorrectly rate a site.

The result of all the regulation will make Internet bland and
homogenized, the group said. The major commercial sites will have the
resources and inclination to selfrate, and thirdparty rating
services will be inclined to give them acceptable ratings, it said.

People who disseminate quirky and idiosyncratic speech, create
individual home pages, or post to controversial newsgroups will
likely be among the first Internet users blocked by filters and made
invisible by the search engines.

"Controversial speech will still exist but will only be visible to
those with the tools and knowhow to penetrate the dense smoke screen
of industry selfregulation," the ACLU said.

The group said the primary responsibility for determining what speech
to access should remain with individual Internet users and especially
parents for deciding what their children should access.

"The First Amendment prevents the government from
imposing, or from coercing industry into imposing, a
mandatory Internet ratings scheme," said the ACLU